Music, performance and Zanu-PF’s hegemony in Mugabe’s newly independent Zimbabwe

Bibliographic Data

ID15554074
AuthorsMandlenkosi Mpofu (0000-0001-9655-5681, University of Eswatini, corresponding author), Nyamadzawo Sibanda (0000-0002-2950-7767, University of Pretoria)
Year2023
Volume15
Issue1
Pages27-47
Publication date2023-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of African Media Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-7974 • E-ISSN: 2040-199X
PublisherIntellect (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1386/jams_00091_1
OpenAlexW4323540060
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited20

The premise of this article is that popular music was a critical space for enforcing hegemonic dominance of ZANU-PF during the first decade of its rule, as perhaps in other eras. When it assumed power in 1980, ZANU-PF did not hide its intention to establish single-party rule, which was then popular across Africa. Top among competing priorities for the new regime was removing all centres of political opposition or resistance. But PF-ZAPU, ZANU-PF’s erstwhile liberation war rival, threatened this vision in south-western Zimbabwe, where it enjoyed significant support. We analyse music that promoted ZANU-PF hegemony in the context of the Gukurahundi ‘genocide’ in the early 1980s, a campaign that was part of the desire for complete dominance of Zimbabwe. The music contained a celebratory discourse spreading fear and emotional violence, thus censoring and suffocating competing narratives about the new state

Art · Dominance (genetics · Framing (construction · Hegemony · Ideology · Literature · Narrative · Opposition (politics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Gender Studies · History · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law

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